In recent years, many business functions have become dependent on the availability of connections to computer networks, for communications between employees, for data exchange, and for connection to databases, among other things. As the demand for network access increases, it has become necessary to provide access to computer networks at remote sites, and at locations where a traditional connection via wires do not exist. Accordingly, the need for wireless network access has become more prevalent in different types of business applications, where connections by wire are impossible or simply not practical.
The spread of wireless networks and devices that operate on those networks has been accelerated by the introduction of relatively inexpensive, mass produced radios that transmit and receive within the networks. Those radio transreceivers may be included in hubs of the network and in various peripheral devices that are connected together. For example, the radios may be built on a computer card adapter or on a bus card, which is then included in a computing device such as a portable computer or a dedicated computing device. These so called point of activity computing and communications systems include the wireless network system, mobile computers and various scanners and data entry devices that are all tied together by radios that provide the necessary connectivity
One key requirement for the practical use of wireless networks is that the radios described above be produced in large numbers and inexpensively. Testing of the completed radios is an important step in the manufacturing process, necessary to ensure consistent performance of the wireless network devices. The testing must be carried out rapidly and inexpensively for very large numbers of radios, in less than optimal testing conditions. For example, the fixtures used in the testing must provide repeatable results for the large number of radios produced, and must do so in a manufacturing environment where electrical noise and radio transmissions may interfere with the performance measurements.